Miracle
Yoga

ACIM Yoga inspired by

“A
Course in Miracles”

MIRACLE YOGA IS A WAY OF FOLLOWING CHRIST

Miracle Yoga is a form
of Christian yoga since it is a way of
practicing yoga as a means of following Christ.
Miracle Yoga is also called "ACIM Yoga" because it is based on the
spiritual
principles
of A Course in Miracles. Miracle
Yoga encourages you to make
progress in learning how to love, serve, meditate, understand, and
forgive.

Awakening
to the Light

A PATH OF
FORGIVENESS AND AWAKENING

Yoga literally means "union" and typically is understood as
a path
toward ultimate awakening to your own true spiritual nature in God.
Obviously
you cannot "force" yourself to wake up to God, but you can prepare a
solid foundation for this ultimate awakening through practicing Miracle
Yoga.
Yoga, which also can be interpreted as "integration,"
involves paying careful attention to the body, mind, and
spirit as a
preparation for uncovering your divine oneness with God. Spiritual
awakening includes diving deep within yourself to find the light, as is
illustrated in the image above. Nevertheless, you cannot awaken all by
yourself. This growth
process includes not only awakening to your inner union with God, but
also
awakening to your union with all your brothers and sisters in Christ.
Miracle Yoga teaches that forgiveness and joining with your brothers
and sisters is an essential part of your awakening, as is symbolized in
the circular
Miracle Yoga logo shown at the top of this web page.

Seeing
everything through “forgiving eyes”

WHAT IS
TRUE FORGIVENESS?

A
Course in Miracles asks you to reconsider many commonly held
beliefs. For
instance, forgiveness is normally thought of as an undeserved gift
given to a
person while still perceiving him as being sinful and guilty. The
Course calls
this “false forgiveness” because it preserves false judgments and
resentments.
“True forgiveness” removes all judgments and resentments and allows you
to
perceive the divine presence of holiness in others. The following
excerpt from An Overview of a “Course in
Miracles” describes
the nature of true forgiveness:

True
forgiveness, which is based
on right-mindedness, involves both “looking and overlooking.” The
“overlooking”
part of forgiveness looks past what is forgiven seeing that it is
entirely an
illusion that never happened in reality. Thus “overlooking” consists of
“looking beyond error from the beginning, and thus keeping it unreal
for you.”

1 Yet keeping
error unreal in your
eyes can be tricky in your practical application of overlooking. “The
ego’s
plan is to have you see error clearly first, and then overlook it. Yet
how can
you overlook what you have made real? By seeing it clearly, you have
made it
real and cannot overlook it.”2
Overlooking
requires only that you recognize immediately at first glance that all
fearful
appearances of sin and guilt are illusory because they contradict the
knowledge
that every Son of God is just as holy now as when God created him in
the
eternal present moment. Therefore, it is necessary from the beginning
to pay no
attention to the details of what is forgiven as you practice
overlooking.

The “looking”
part of forgiveness
sees only the divine holiness and true reality of the one who is
forgiven,
realizing he is always worthy of only love. Since he is worthy of love,
you
join with him. The ego is the idea of separation, which says there is a
real
gap of separation between you and your brother. However, when
forgiveness
occurs, you join with your brother, and you realize you are equals
because he
is just as holy as you are. “Forgiveness is the healing of the
perception of
separation.”3 Forgiveness then removes this illusory gap between you
and your
brother and proves to yourself that the ego, the whole idea of
separation, is
an illusion. What is this joining with your brother? Joining is the
earthly
version of love, which reflects the total joining that occurs in
Heaven. You
“can look with love or look with hate, depending only on the simple
choice of
whether you would join with what you see, or keep yourself apart and
separate.”4
Forgiveness represents the choice to join. Thus forgiveness
accomplishes your
true goal of love, which is all that you really want.

The wisdom of
the world teaches that
sin is an offense to God or, in other words, a violation of Reality.
This
belief means that the sinner should feel guilty and punishment is
justified.
The Course teaches that sins are not real. Sins are illusory parts of
the dream
of the world, and so they do not offend God or violate Reality. Sins
are merely
mistakes that can be corrected. Forgiveness allows you to set aside the
belief
that sins are real. Once you learn to remove all your judgments of your
brothers and sisters, you will no longer see them as sinful or guilty.
Instead,
through true forgiveness, you will see the divine presence of holiness
in
everyone.

According
to the Course, you are
asleep in Heaven right now, and you are dreaming of this world of fear,
sin,
and guilt. While you are dreaming that you are separate from God, His
everlasting Love gently caresses you. Your loving Father has sent the
Holy
Spirit into your dream world to show you how to change your fearful
nightmares
into “happy dreams” and then to show you the way beyond all dreaming.
The Holy
Spirit calls you to awaken from your dreams of separation and
encourages you to
use true forgiveness as your means of awakening. With the guidance of
the Holy
Spirit, you can use “forgiving eyes” to transform your perception of
the world.
Forgiveness allows you to overlook the illusions of fear, sin, and
guilt that
you have projected onto the world. You can learn to see the divine
presence of
holiness that is normally hidden from your vision of the world. The
following
Course quotation affirms that true forgiveness transforms your vision
of the
world of dreams and ultimately leads to final awakening in Heaven,
which is
your true Home:

All this
beauty
will rise to bless your sight as you look upon the world with forgiving
eyes.
For forgiveness literally transforms vision, and lets you see the real
world
reaching quietly and gently across chaos, removing all illusions that
had
twisted your perception and fixed it on the past. The smallest leaf
becomes a
thing of wonder, and a blade of grass a sign of God’s perfection.

From
the
forgiven world the Son of God is lifted easily into his home. And there
he
knows that he has always rested there in peace. Even salvation will
become a
dream, and vanish from his mind. For salvation is the end of dreams,
and with the
closing of the dream will have no meaning. Who, awake in Heaven, could
dream
that there could ever be need of salvation?5

“A Course in
Miracles” teaches you
that you are right now a holy and divine Self and are not a body. If you
mistakenly define yoga as only body postures and breathing practices, you will
not understand what yoga has in common with the Course. But if you correctly
define yoga as “union” that transcends the body, you will understand the
marriage of yoga and “A Course in Miracles” called Miracle Yoga.

Traditional Christianity is based on “dualism,”
which is the idea that because of sin, you are currently separate from God and
that hopefully you will join with Him at some future date. In contrast to dualism, "nondualism" maintains
you are joined with God now and always, but you have merely temporarily lost
your awareness of that everlasting union.

The gift of the East is yoga disciplines
directed toward nondualism in which spiritual fulfillment is awakening to your
ever-present oneness with God. The gift of the West is the loving forgiveness
of Christ. Miracle Yoga brings together these two gifts of the East and West. “A
Course in Miracles” is the perfect philosophical foundation for Miracle Yoga
because it is the only Christian philosophy that supports the belief in nondualism.
As a blending of the East and West, Miracle Yoga consists of a healthy balance
of five areas of spiritual development. You can click on the links below to
learn about the five aspects of Miracle Yoga:

The
five aspects of Miracle Yoga are
elaborated upon in the autobiography described below, which
also includes
instructions in how to practice Christian meditation and
simple yoga
postures and breathing practices.

Memory
Walk in
the
Light:

My
Christian Yoga Life as

"A
Course in Miracles"

The
title of this autobiography, “Memory Walk in the Light,” emphasizes my
life as
a concrete journey of forgiveness leading toward an abstract
destination. My
journey is different than yours, but in the end you and I will discover
the
same transcendental Light. This Light is the abstract destination to
which I
have devoted my life.
Many years ago a total stranger walked
up to me and invited
me to go on what he called a “memory walk” with him. I accepted his
invitation,
and since then my life has never been the same. Now I am inviting you
to take a
“memory walk” with me. This autobiography is a journey into the
darkness of the
past with the goal of arriving at the light of the present moment. My
story
bears witness to the truth that with the Love of God all things are
possible.
Quite naturally God’s Love leads to forgiveness, which has shown me
that, “The
holiest of all the spots on earth is where an ancient hatred has become
a
present love.”1

Author:

Donald
James
Giacobbe

Donald
James Giacobbe worked for sixteen years as a case manager for the state
of
Arizona serving developmentally disabled clients. The professional
nature of
his human service work placed limitations on his ability to express his
spiritual motivations overtly, so out of necessity he served as an
"undercover agent" for God.

A more direct approach to spirituality
was facilitated by
living with Zen Buddhist seekers and then being part of a yoga
community. Later
he was the director of the Aquarian Age Yoga Center in Virginia Beach,
VA. He
served as an instructor of meditation and yoga, teaching college
courses and
appearing on television. He specialized in providing yoga teacher
training
certification courses and leading meditation workshops and retreats.
In his teaching of meditation, Don
has
attempted to strip away the rituals of
Zen
Buddhism and yoga practices and transpose only the bare essence into a
Christian
context. Techniques of meditation inspired by Eastern sources enhance
the use
of traditional Christian practices, such as the "Jesus Prayer," and
lead to the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit that occurs in Christian
contemplation.

Don encourages the doing of God's Will,
being receptive to
the Holy Spirit, and finding Christ within the temple of one's own
heart. While
respecting all Christian spiritual expressions, he became a monk by
making his
vow directly to God, without the stamp of approval from any religious
organization. For many years Don used the term "Christian yoga" to
describe his spiritual path, which combined following Christ with yoga
disciplines. However, in recent years he has adopted the term "Miracle
Yoga" to describe the specific path of Christian yoga he has chosen.
This
form of spirituality is a synthesis of yoga and the philosophy of "A
Course in Miracles." The seeker is encouraged to see with
"forgiving
eyes" and perceive Christ in everyone. Don's goal is to maintain a
balance
between opening
inwardly
to divine love and allowing that love to be
extended
outwardly to others.